


paint your face for war

by nirav



Series: never go easy [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 08:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9430157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: alex learns to write left handed, and to grieve, and to put herself back together before she can put anyone else back together.





	1. Chapter 1

 

_we have come somehow_  
_to a great divide_  
_i promise you we'll see the other side_  
_paint your face for war_  
_a piece of me will die_  
_i'll keep myself completely_  
_but never go easy_

* * *

  
It smells like antiseptic, sharp and invasive and all that she can parse through as she pulls back towards consciousness.  She coughs and her whole body flinches with the movement, pain stabbing out from ribs and shoulders and hands, and her cough peters off into a groan.

She opens her eyes, sticky and gummy, to a bland off-white ceiling.  A soft chorus of beeps echo off the flat white ceiling and she shakes her head until the sound sharpens.

“Alex?”

That’s Lucy’s voice. Alex blinks and squints and shakes her head again until she can pinpoint the sound and focus enough for the lumpy form at her side to settle into a blurry Lucy Lane.

“Glasses,” Alex mumbles, squinting hard enough to make her head hurt.

There’s a sniff and a shuffle and the blurred edges of Lucy move, settling glasses carefully onto Alex’s nose.  The soft edges of Lucy narrow and clarify, and Alex licks at her dry lips and glances around the room, taking stock.

She’s in a hospital bed.  Her right arm is in traction, disappearing from the elbow down into bandages and supports.  Her whole body aches like she was hit by a truck.  Kara is asleep in a chair on one side of her bed, corkscrewed into a ball of blonde hair and teetering glasses.  

Lucy is standing on the other side of the bed, fingers twisted together and shoulders rounded and eyes focused on the floor.

“Thanks,” Alex says.  Her voice comes out as a weak rasp, and she licks at her lips again.  She glances over towards Kara meaningfully before turning her eyes back to Lucy.  “Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” Lucy says softly.  She sits down on the edge of her chair, hands folded in her lap.  “She didn't want to leave until you woke up.”

“How long?”

Lucy glances at her watch, turning it on her wrist with trembling fingers.  “About ten hours.  Give or take.”

Alex groans.  “How did we get out?”

“DEO backup made it in time,” Lucy says after a long hesitation.  “Came in on the west flank, where you had broken through the first time.  Held everyone off until J’onn could fly Kara out, and then they got you out.”

“What about--”

Lucy shakes her head, short and sharp.  Her posture stays as it was, her face carefully blank.  Alex stares at her, nausea building in her stomach and pushing against the pain in her chest.  They had gone in with James and Mon-El and Winn.  They had gone in together and only half of them made it out.  She closes her eyes, gasping for air, because they had gone in together and she’d leapt towards James, reaching and reaching and reaching to grab him before the collapsing walls had fallen on him--

Her entire body shakes and trembles and the straps and buckles of the sling holding her right arm in traction rattle.  She yanks at them with her left hand, fingers fumbling uselessly and against Lucy’s sudden movement, the way she suddenly is saying “ _ Alex, wait-- _ ” in a wobbly voice.  Alex manages to pull her arm free from the oversized sling it had been hanging in and it falls onto the blanket, weak and painful and ending in a stump halfway down her forearm.

Her hand is gone.

She stares at it for long seconds before turning, slowly, to face Lucy with wide eyes and confusion.  Lucy looks like she’s going to vomit, and she doesn’t say anything for an untenably long time before she bolts from her chair and out of the room, leaving Alex with a sister who’s just waking up and one less hand than she’d always had.

 

* * *

A day passes with Kara and Eliza and J’onn crowded into her hospital room.  Kara’s recovered, mostly, the damage from the kryptonite blade having missed most of her vital organs and J’onn having flown her out the DEO in time for her to heal.  J’onn is quiet but alive and healthy, save for a fractured arm and a bullethole clean through one shoulder.  

Lucy doesn’t come back, and Alex goes into surgery again.   When she wakes up the second time, Kara is standing at the foot of her bed with Lena Luthor, arms folded over her stomach and her entire body swaying tiredly.  The clock reads nearly ten at night.  Alex had gone into surgery at eight that morning and Kara must have been pacing the entire time.

“Hey,” Kara says, darting around at super-speed to Alex’s side.  She must have told Lena at some point; Alex would argue the point of keeping her identity a secret if she could find the energy to speak.  Kara picks up her left hand and holds it tight between hers.

Alex’s mind clears, slowly, from the anesthesia fog and the painkillers and the brief respite from remembering that half of her friends had died two days earlier.  She licks at her lips and accepts the water Kara offers her and finally speaks.

“Have you seen Lucy?”

“I-- no,” Kara mumbles.  “She hasn’t been by.  Susan spoke to her on the phone, I think, but she hasn’t been by.”  

Alex nods, sucking in a breath that hurts her sore throat and tired lungs.  She focuses on Lena instead, eyebrows raising in question, and Lena ducks her head for a brief moment and looks back up as Lena Luthor, scientist and executive, instead of the careful worried woman who had stood at Kara’s side with sad eyes when Kara and James started dating.  

“I don’t mean to intrude,” Lena says softly.  “But I wanted to offer-- I know you’re an engineer, probably a better one than anyone working for me, but to my understanding you’ve not focused on prosthetics before.  My R&D team has.”  She pulls a binder out of her purse and settles it carefully on the table at Alex’s bedside.  “We’ve made significant strides forward in the last few years with cybernetics.  It’s not on market yet because we haven’t found a way to make it remotely cost effective, but--”  

She cuts herself off briefly, eyes darting of to Kara for a split second before focusing back on Alex.  “If you want it, it’s yours.”  She smiles, tight and sad and wavering.  “I’ll let you two-- you should be with family right now.  I’ll see myself out.”

Kara squeezes Alex’s hand before whooshing over to hug Lena.  Lena leans into it before clearing her throat and stepping back.  She nods at Alex and smiles, a little less tight and a little less sad, and disappears out of the room.

Alex closes her eyes and pushes her head back into the pillow.  Kara’s hands close around her left one once more.

“When can I get out of here?” Alex opens her eyes slowly, focusing somewhere on Kara’s shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Kara says.  “Just-- rest.  You have to rest, and heal.”

“I want to--”

“Alex, please.”  Kara’s voice cracks and her hands tighten on Alex’s, enough that it makes her bones creak and takes the focus off of the pain radiating out of what’s left of her right arm.  “Please.   Don’t try to-- just please, stay here.”  She’s crying, still and silent, and Alex grinds her teeth together.  James and Kara had been dating for six months and now--

“I’m so sorry,” she manages to push out.  “About--”

It’s enough to make Kara crack and crumble and the room fills with big gasping sobs.  Alex pulls weakly, shuffling over towards one side of the bed and pulling until Kara climbs into the bed next to her.  She burrows into Alex’s neck and cries and cries and cries, and Alex holds her as best she can with just one hand.

 

* * *

Eliza brings Alex her phone.  It takes longer than it should for her to unlock it, the weight of the phone more than her healing body wants to deal with and the fingerprint sensor barely recognizing her left thumbprint through the scrapes and cuts marring her skin.  Her right arm stays tucked uselessly into a sling, tight against her chest.  It doesn’t hurt as much as it did the first 24 hours out of surgery, and she’s not looking forward to how it’s going to feel in another 24 hours once they fuse the L Corp prosthetic to her bones and nerves.

She fumbles with the phone once more and manages to dial Lucy.

“Hey,” sounds from the doorway, muted and hesitant and soft, and Alex drops the phone.  It flops down onto the blanket, still calling Lucy, who’s standing in the door to Alex’s room.  “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course,” Alex says, stabbing at the  _ End Call  _ button.  A physical therapist had stopped by in the morning, offering suggestions for training her left hand to replace her right.  Lena’s technology is impressive, bolstered even more by a few tweaks Alex had suggested, but there’s little chance it will have the dexterity or coordination of a real hand.  Her right arm twitches as Lucy settles carefully into the chair at her bedside, instinct reaching out to touch her and the sling holding it back.

“How are you?”  Lucy slides her hands under her thighs, pushing them down into the chair.  Her shoulders are higher than normal, sharp and tense and uncertain, and her cheekbones are even more prominent than normal, and it makes Alex’s teeth hurt.  She’s in jeans and a sweatshirt, more casual than Alex has ever seen her, the hoodie too big and the sleeves drooping down from where she’s pushed them up to her elbows.  The faded logo reads  _ Columbia School of Journalism _ and the shoulders are broad and worn in from when it used to be James’, when Lucy and James were dating.   

“I’m okay,” Alex says, shrugging with one shoulder.  “I have another surgery tomorrow.  Lena has a cybernetics lab that…” She pauses, because Lucy is looking down at her knees and over past Alex’s shoulder and at the foot of her bed and anywhere but Alex’s eyes or hand.  “Lucy.”

“The funeral is going to be on Saturday,” Lucy says softly.  “Funerals.  For all of them.”

“Oh.”

“The President will be there.”  Lucy’s fingers flex into the seat, invisible under her legs, but the tension in her forearms stands out in the sterile hospital lighting.  “Full honors.  They’re building a memorial.”  Her jaw clenches visibly, and Alex’s stomach aches.

“Lucy,” she says.  “Can you--how are you?”

“I’m fine,” Lucy says.  She still won’t meet Alex’s eyes.  “Kara’s all healed up, and J’onn is recovering, and you--”

“Lucy,” Alex says again.  “That’s not what I meant.  I haven’t seen you in days, I know how hard this is for all of us, I just--”  She takes a deep breath, trying and trying and trying to catch Lucy’s eye and failing every time.  “I want to know if you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.  All in one piece.”

“Come on, you know that’s not what I’m asking.”  She pulls at the strap on the sling.  There’s a patch of raw skin under her hospital gown, slashing down from her left shoulder and mirroring the strap’s path.  

“Kara said you had another surgery.”  

Alex sighs, glancing down at her mangled arm.  “She said she tried to call you before, to let you know.”

“I was in Metropolis,” Lucy said.  Her knuckles go pale around the edge of the chair.  “I wanted to tell James’ mother in person.  I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

“Lucy,” Alex says, softly, helplessly, fingers twitching and both arms moving towards her.  The sling on her right arm and the IV in her left hold her back and she groans at the needle in her arm.  She kicks the blankets off and yanks at the pole holding the IV bag until she can swing her feet off the bed and face Lucy fully.

“What are you--”

“Can you please just stand up and look at me?” Alex says.  “Please.”

Seconds click by, measured loudly in the unsteady beeps from Alex’s heart monitor, until Lucy pushes herself up to stand at Alex’s bedside.  The loose material of her sweatshirt-- James’ sweatshirt-- brushes against Alex’s knees, and Alex pulls at the IV until she has enough give to reach out for Lucy’s hand.  

Lucy’s fingers lay slack in hers, and Alex grips and releases and moves to push her hand against the line of Lucy’s jaw, directing her chin until she can’t look anywhere but at Alex.

“I’m sorry you had to do that alone,” Alex says firmly.  “And I’m not upset that you weren’t here for the surgery.  That doesn’t matter.  I just want to know what I can do to help you.”

“I’m not the one in a hospital bed.”  Lucy’s chin trembles against Alex’s hand.  “I should be asking you that, not the other way around.”

“I have three doctors and two surgeons and at least six nurses, plus Kara and J’onn and my mother all checking on how I am,” Alex says with a smile.  It’s a real smile, small as it is, and the first one she’s felt in days.  “Who’s checking on you?”

“I’m fine,” Lucy says quietly.  Her fingers curl around Alex’s wrist, soft and familiar-- familiar, somehow, as if there’s more to contribute to the way her fingertips settle easily over Alex’s pulse than two dates and one kiss on a street corner-- and Alex trips over her own breath when Lucy’s fingertips sweep along the inside of her wrist.  “Don’t worry about me.”

“Lucy,” Alex says.  It comes out weak and falls flat in the bright sterility of the hospital room.  

“I have to go help with the memorial.”  Lucy squeezes Alex’s wrist, brief and gentle, and then pulls Alex’s hand from her jaw and steps back, fingers sliding along Alex’s hand until she’s out of reach.  

“Can you please just--”

“I’ll be pretty busy with the planning,” Lucy says without meeting Alex’s eyes.  She clears her throat and pushes at her hair and tugs her sleeves down over her hands.  “I’ll talk to you later, okay?  You just focus on healing.”

She’s out the door in seconds, leaving Alex to call after her and lean towards the door until the IV pulls at her arm sharply.

 

* * *

The surgery goes well.  When Alex wakes up once again she has a cybernetic hand glinting in the hospital lights, shiny and metal and cool to the touch.  It hurts-- oh  _ God _ it hurts, the morphine nothing compared to the fusion of nerves and circuits-- and she gasps, struggling for breath under the ungodly ache pounding through her arm, clenching her fist and--

Her prosthetic hand snaps into a fist, just as her left does, and it’s enough to distract her, for a brief moment, from the pain.  She stares at it, edges and details blurry without her glasses, and wills the fingers to relax.  They release from the fist, and she clenches them back into a fist, and out, and back in again.

“Can you feel it?”

That’s Lena, standing at the foot of her bed, arms folded anxiously over her stomach.  She looks tired, her makeup worn down, but her eyes are bright, her smile hopeful.  Kara stands at her side, hands shoved into her pockets and worry creasing her forehead.  Alex stares at them and then back at her hand and touches the blanket covering her legs.  She can feel that it’s there, soft and springy, the pressure accurate but the sensations-- the scratch of the fabric, the warmth she can feel seeping from it to her legs-- are nowhere to be found.

“Mostly,” Alex mumbles out.  The awe is fading in the face of the pain and digs her fingers into the blanket.  “Texture and sensations aren’t--”

“You should sleep,” Kara says quietly.  “You two can nerd out over it after you sleep.”

Alex means to protest, but instead she just drops her head back onto the pillow.  There’s a soft scuff of shoes and Kara is at her side, picking up her left hand carefully and holding it in both of hers.  Alex pushes her eyes open and looks around the room drowsily.

“Did Lucy come?”

“She was here for the surgery,” Kara says with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes completely.  “She left a little while ago, to help with the memorial service plans.”

“Oh,” Alex says.  Her eyes slip shut again.  “Okay.”  

 

* * *

The day that they bury their friends is Alex’s first day out of the hospital.

It’s sunny and warm, the sun warming the black of the blazer tucked over her shoulders.  The black of the sling tucking her arm against her stomach melds into the black of her dress.  Her glasses slip down her nose-- she hasn’t figured out yet how to handle contact lenses with one hand, and her prosthetic is useless at this point-- and she doesn’t want to let go of the grip she has on her sister’s hand to fix them, wrinkling her nose and distorting her face momentarily to nudge them halfway back into place.  

Kara walks between her and Eliza, holding onto each of their hands tight enough for Alex’s bones to creak.  Behind her glasses, Kara’s eyes are still red.  

The only other time Kara has worn all black was when she was infected with red kryptonite.  She had stood tall and haughty then, hair down and chin up, terrifying but confident.  Now her shoulders are low and her spine curves under the weight of her grief. 

They pull up to a halt in front of James’ mother and Kara’s hand tightens even more on Alex’s.  Alex squeezes back as best she can, holding on tight until Kara finds the strength to let go and step forward and hug Mrs. Olsen tightly.  Eliza moves automatically to fill the space Kara had left at Alex’s side and picks up her hand, holding it carefully.  She pulls Alex along to their seats, fretting over her sling and checking the bandages on her arm-- Alex had fought the doctors to let her walk out of the hospital, the fragile connection of nerve and circuits ripe for infection and complication in the real world-- as they sit tiredly in the front row.

The procession starts.  Kara had fought to be part of it, acquiescing not to Alex or Eliza or J’onn, but only to James’ mother and her need to have a hand to hold.  Lucy leads the line in, in full regalia with what has to be an entire battalion at her back, carrying three caskets on their shoulders.  

There are speeches and eulogies, military salutes and folded flags; Alex sits with her mother’s hand on her knee and her left hand in Kara’s and stares at the stage in front of them.  The speeches and honors and dedications fall past her attention.  All she can focus on is Lucy, shining and glinting and impassive in her full Lieutenant Colonel uniform, all sharp lines and blank military stares.

The flags are folded and one is handed to James’ mother.  The second goes to Kara; it must be Winn’s.  There’s a moment of hesitation and confusion, and the third is offered to her.  Mon-El, obnoxious as he was, had no family except for them, and Alex accepts the flag silently with a shaking left hand.  Her mother’s hand tightens on her knee and Alex blinks past the line of soldiers in front of her to where Lucy still stands on the stage, posture at attention but eyes zeroed in on Alex.

She’s crying.  The tears glint subtly in the sunlight and she doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t break attention at all.  Alex watches her, fingers of her left hand digging into the meticulously folded flag and fingers on her right fluttering inside the sling.

The ceremony ends with rifles firing into the air and an honorary final salute.  Alex’s legs shake as she stands, maybe because of exhaustion and maybe because her friends, her family, her brothers, are in three coffins six feet under the ground she’s standing on.

Lucy appears later, when Alex is sitting on the bumper of one of the DEO trucks.  Mon-El’s flag is settled carefully in her lap and held securely with her left hand.  

“Hey,” Lucy says quietly.

“Hi.”  Alex shakes her hair out of her face, hands occupied and useless.  “It’s good to see you.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” Lucy says, hands behind her back.  Her posture is a picture of ramrod precision.  “There was a lot of finagling to do-- I wanted them to have full honors, and the Army isn’t keen on it normally but--”

“Thank you,” Alex says.  She glances down at the flag in her lap.  “Really.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Lucy says.  She steps closer, hands pulling around to lock in front of her instead of behind.  The sleeves of her uniform brush against Alex’s knees.  “I’m going to be in DC for a little while, I think.  I owe some people some favors now.”

“Tell the general I said hi, then,” Alex says with something that approximates a smile. “Or to fuck off.  I don’t really care.”

“I will,” Lucy says.  She reaches for Alex, one hand settling on her wrist.  The other hesitates inches from Alex’s cheek, fingers flexing before touching to Alex’s skin.  Her thumb follows the line of Alex’s cheekbone, skidding gently along her skin.  Lucy leans closer and presses a kiss to Alex’s other cheek.  “Try not to push too much, okay?  You need time to heal.”

“Yeah,” Alex whispers, eyes shut and head tilting into Lucy’s hand.  

She doesn’t open her eyes until Lucy’s pulled back and her hands have fallen away.  Alex blinks against the burn in her eyes as Lucy walks away, spine and shoulders sharp lines under her uniform and steps measured into an even march.  

 

* * *

A week goes by, and Alex has moved back into her apartment.  There’s a fine layer of dust settled over everything, but Eliza has gone on a grocery spree and put fresh sheets on her bed.  It’s home, and she curls under the blankets and sleeps fitfully throughout the rest of the day.

Alex calls Lucy when she wakes up.  She doesn’t get an answer.

The next day, she takes a cab to the DEO office, her body still too exhausted from the surgery to handle the five block walk.  J’onn takes one look at her and orders her home.

“In a minute,” Alex says.  “I just-- wanted to come by.”

“Alex,” he says, soft and concerned.  “You need to rest.”

“I need to move forward,” Alex says sharply.  Her indignation is muted by the moment she has to take to push her glasses back into place.  “I can’t do much now but I can-- let me at least work in my lab.”

“Half days only.”  J’onn folds his arms over his chest.  “Vasquez, you babysit her.  Make her take a nap if you have to.”

“J’onn--”

He glares down at Alex, and she huffs out a sigh.  “Fine.”  She glances over at Vasquez and jerks her head towards the lab.

Her lab hasn’t changed at all.  It should have, it seems; everything else has.  Winn’s workstations are cleaned, all of his action figures and toys and notebooks packed away.  The armory has empty spots where James’ and Mon-El’s suits had been stored.  The lights in Lucy’s office are off.

Alex takes a deep, shuddering breath and sits down at her desk.  It takes longer than it should to type out her login lefthanded, but she manages.  There are emails and reports to go through, data swimming in front of her eyes, and she drops her forehead into her hand.

“Ma’am?”

“II told you not to call me that,” Alex mumbles.

Susan is quiet, still standing at attention on the other side of Alex’s desk.  Alex sighs and rubs at her eyes.

“Can you give me a ride somewhere?”

“Of course.”

 

* * *

Lucy’s apartment is another four blocks from the DEO past Alex’s.  Alex sits quietly in the passenger seat as they park across the street, staring at the street corner where she had kissed Lucy once.  She had walked Lucy home, hands entangled and Lucy mocking her endlessly for some science joke that had fallen terribly flat, and Alex had pulled up to a stop on the last street corner before Lucy’s front door and kissed her, hands on her hips and pulling her close.

“Ma’am?”

“Susan, seriously,” Alex says with an eyeroll.  “Come on.”

Susan follows without question, as she does, to the tenth floor of the building and the apartment on the corner.  Alex knocks and waits and knocks and waits and knocks again.

“I don’t think they’re home,” Susan says after a long while.  Alex rolls her eyes up to the ceiling, huffing out a sigh.  

“You can pick a lock, right?”

“Yes ma’am,” Susan says, cocky and unafraid, her confidence another crack in the facade Alex is barely holding together.  She had been that confident, once upon a time, when she had two hands and a sister who didn’t cry herself to sleep at night and a path in front of her to something new and warm and hopeful with Lucy at her side.  

Alex gestures towards the door and steps back, giving her room to work.  She had been able to pick locks since the tenth grade, but her right hand barely had the dexterity yet to hold a fork.  

The door swings open and Susan steps to the side, allowing Alex room to walk in.

Lucy’s apartment is empty.  The furniture is still there but the bookshelves are vacant, the drawers standing open and empty.  There are no pictures on the walls and the kitchen is empty.  A layer of dust, much like the one that had covered Alex’s apartment, has settled over the hardwood floors and dulled the sleek metal lines of the appliances.

Alex stands in the center of the living room, staring at the couch she had sat on once upon a time after she and Lucy had gone for drinks one night to celebrate finishing an abundance of paperwork at the DEO.  Lucy had offered her a bottle of Gatorade to soak up the whiskey and they’d sat on the couch, barefoot and tipsy, and Alex had paused and taken a deep breath and asked Lucy out on a date.

She’d said yes.  Now she was gone.

Alex stands in the center of the living room with Susan Vasquez watching her and, for the first time since she woke up in the hospital minus one hand and three brothers, she cries.

 

* * *

Susan drives her home, after sitting in silence with her on the dusty floor of Lucy’s living room for an hour.  She doesn’t say anything, but walks Alex up to her apartment and helps her with the keys that her left hand still struggles with.  

She leaves only when Kara shows up, flying in from the balcony in a rush of wind.  Kara thanks her and heads straight to the couch where Alex is curled up, her right arm tucked against her chest.

“What happened?”  She wraps herself around Alex, as she always has, and holds her tight.  There’s a quiet click as the door shuts, signaling Susan’s departure, and Alex slumps into Kara’s arms.

“Lucy is gone,” she mumbles.  “Her apartment is empty.  She left.”

Kara doesn’t say anything, but just holds Alex tighter, and Alex pushes closer into her, as if Kara can hold together all of the splintering pieces that Lucy’s disappearance had finally pushed to breaking.  

“She’ll come back,” Kara says.  “She always comes back.  She just needs time.”  

For the first time in years, it’s back to just the two of them, the rest of the family they’d built-- Lucy and James and Mon-El and Winn-- all gone.  J’onn is still there, but J’onn has always been more of a parent than a friend, another Eliza babysitting the lot of them.  All that’s left of game nights and drinks at dive bars and sparring matches and using the DEO communications center for unauthorized movie night and slumber parties is Kara and Alex and a cybernetic hand that still can’t feel the difference between hot and cold.

They’re the only ones left.


	2. Chapter 2

J’onn keeps Alex on half days for a month, glaring her out of the DEO every day at 1:00 like clockwork.  She argued, at first, unprepared to spend all of her afternoons home alone, but her body gives in every time, still exhausted by simple tasks.  She spends her afternoons in physical therapy instead, half at the hospital and half at L Corp, with Lena’s cybernetics team to polish up the rough patches in the circuitry in her hand.

By the time she’s allowed back on full time active duty, on the condition of seeing a counselor three times a week, she’s learned to open doors and stir coffee and type with her cybernetic hand.  The first email she sends is to the counselor, to cancel her appointment.  Less than five minutes pass from when she hits send to when J’onn and Kara loom in doorway.

“What?”

“You’re going to see the counselor,” J’onn says, arms folded over his chest.  

“Alex, you really should,” Kara says, more softly, eyes wide and sad.  “She’s really great, she’s helped me a lot.”

“I didn’t lose my boyfriend,” Alex says.

“No, you just lost family,” Kara throws back at her.  Her jaw clenches, mouth going tight like it does when she’s angry, but her eyes are pleading and soft.  Alex closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.  “Please go.  For me.  For us,” she adds, gesturing to J’onn.

“That’s cheating,” Alex mumbles.  

“If you’d prefer, I can just ban you from active duty until you go,” J’onn offers.  

Kara shoots a glare his way, the  _ we talked about this _ written into her furrowed brow and tense shoulders, and he rolls his eyes.

Alex huffs out a loud sigh and pushes herself up to her feet.

“Fine,” she says.  “Going.  Right now.”

“You can’t go right now,” Kara says.  “She’s got another appointment.  You’re going at your actual appointment time.”

Alex flops back down into her chair with a groan.  It jars her hand, but her dramatics make Kara smile, just a little bit, so it’s worth it.

 

* * *

“Agent Danvers.”  The counselor is older than her mother and looks like she knows how to bake at least 42 different types of cookie off the top of her head.  “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

“Yeah,” Alex says, crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap.  In the DEO, even the one that isn’t underground, the low lighting makes her hand disappear into the shadows too easily.  

“I assume you’re aware that I’ve been briefed officially on the predicating situation,” she says.  “Additionally, I’ve also been brought up to speed, informally, by your sister.”

“Then I assume I won’t don’t have anything new to say,” Alex says coolly.  

“I don’t need a tactical rundown, no,” she says, tilting her head to one side and mirroring Alex’s posture.  “But maybe you could tell me about how you’ve been doing.”

“I’m doing well.”

“Oh?”

“I am,” Alex says sharply. “I’ve recovered as well as can be expected from my injuries, better in some senses if you count the prosthetic, and I’m back at work.  I’m doing well.”

“Even though you lost half of your team in a mission?”

Alex’s fingers dig into her thigh.  “Yes.”

“Even though you lost a limb trying to save one of them, and he died anyways?”

Alex glares at her.  “I’m fine.”

“Even though an inexperienced technical asset was blown up by a rocket launcher--”

“His name was Winn,” Alex snaps.  “He wasn’t just an  _ asset _ , he was a person, and a friend.”

“And now he’s dead,” she says softly.  Alex grinds her teeth together and glares across the room at the therapist.  “I know that you and Mr. Schott were good friends.”

“Family,” Alex says, clearing her throat.  “He was like family.  So were James and Mon-El.”

“You’ve collected a lot of family since you and Supergirl started working at the DEO,” the counselor says.  

“It’s inevitable in some contexts,” Alex says with a shrug.  Last year, she and Kara had hauled all of them-- J’onn and James and Winn and Mon-El and Lucy-- up to Midvale for Thanksgiving.  Eliza had sat at the head of the dinner table, smiling and quiet at a house full of family once more, and for the first time since college, Alex hadn’t drowned herself in wine to get through the holiday.  

“You’ve lost a lot of family, too.”

Alex focuses down on her hands, the lines of the glove covering her prosthetic and the way it contrasts against the fabric of her pants.  

“Agent Danvers,” the counselor says.  “Do you want to tell me about your family?”

“What about them?”

“I know that Winn Schott was a technology expert who read and spoke Kryptonian, had an extensive background in coding and systems design, managed the communications and technology coordination for most of your tactical missions.  I know that James Olsen was a combat asset who was brought into the DEO as an external party, that he was a photojournalist and editor for Catco Worldwide Media, and an ally of Superman and Supergirl.  I know that Mon-El was the sole survivor of the collateral damage done to Daxam when Krypton collapsed, that he trained for combat under your supervision, and that he had been written up for misdemeanor disciplinary actions more than the rest of the DEO combined.  What I don’t know is who they were, aside from people you considered family.  So why don’t you tell me about them?”

“I,” Alex starts.  “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“For my sake, Agent Danvers,” she says.  “What were Winn and James and Mon-El like, as people, not as assets?”

Alex takes a deep breath, still not looking up from her hands.  “Winn was a complete nerd,” she says quietly.  “His desk was always covered in action figures, and toys, and puzzles.”

The counselor props her chin in her hand and listens, silent, as Alex keeps talking.

 

* * *

Two weeks pass, and Alex has a counseling appointment put into her calendar every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, added by J’onn and locked with his authorization privileges so she can’t move or delete it.  She goes, every Monday and Wednesday and Friday, and answers questions about her physical therapy, about the updates to her prosthetic, about James’ bravado and Winn’s attempts to tame and organize the mission archive files and Mon-El’s still-untouched lothario record for hitting on every single agent in the DEO at least once.

She doesn’t know the therapist’s name.  There’s no name on the door to office, just a placard with her title.  It makes it easier, almost, talking to someone who doesn’t offer a name.  

“I have a question,” the therapist says one Friday afternoon, in the middle of Alex explaining how James had roped Winn into the Guardian nonsense.  “You’ve told me about Winn, and James, and Mon-El.  But you’ve never told me anything about Major Lane.”

“What?” Alex freezes, fingers digging into the chair’s armrests.

“Lucy Lane,” she says again.  “She was part of the team, was she not?  Tactical command.  She tendered a resignation and left the DEO shortly after the mission when--”

“I’m aware,” Alex snaps.  She inhales sharply and wills her fingers to relax.  “She was uninjured during the mission.”

“I know,” she says.  “But she’s still gone.  That has to matter.”

“It doesn’t,” Alex says.  “Major Lane made a choice to leave the DEO.  That’s her prerogative.”

The therapist regards her for long moments, tapping her pen on her knee.  “May I extrapolate for a moment?”

“If you really have to.”  Alex bites down on the inside of her cheek.   

“Major Lane left the DEO immediately following the memorial for the rest of your team,” she says.  “Per the paperwork, she transferred to a post in Washington and has been there ever since.  Her transfer orders are on record at the DEO, meaning you could, if you choose, reach out to her.  You haven’t.  You’ve also not said a word about her throughout these sessions.”

“I’m aware,” Alex says again.  The armrest creaks under her right hand.  “Is there a conclusion in there anywhere?”

“I think that while you’ve been healthily mourning the loss of the team members who died, you’ve been willfully refusing to deal with the loss of Major Lane.”

“The Major isn’t dead, or lost,” Alex says carefully.  “She’s moved on to a new post.  It’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it?”  

“Well, she’s not  _ dead _ , so I would say so,” Alex says.

“She just chose to leave,” the therapist counters.  The armrest crunches and crumples under Alex’s right hand, metal folding and warping in her fingers.  The therapist raises an eyebrow at her and meets Alex’s eyes blankly for long seconds before glancing at the clock on the wall.  “Why don’t you think about that and we’ll talk about it next time.”

Alex stomps out of the office, slamming the door behind her and stalking straight past her own office to the garage.  She breaks stride just long enough to slam her right fist into the wall-- the concrete breaks and falls under the cybernetic punch, pressure vibrating up through the bones she still has left and down her spine-- on the way and drives herself home.

 

* * *

“We don’t have anything scheduled today,” Alex says shortly the next day when the therapist appears in her office doorway.  She doesn’t turn away from her computer.

“Your sister came by my office this morning,” she says mildly.  “She’s worried about you because apparently you drank half a bottle of scotch by yourself last night and missed a briefing this morning.”

“Tattletale,” Alex mutters.  “I’ve already gotten a lecture and a parental glare from the director and Kara pouting at me.  I don’t need anything from you.”

“The director asked that I talk to you this morning.  We can do it here or in my office.”

“I’m busy,” Alex says, spinning her chair around to the workbench behind her desk.  

“Maybe if you hadn’t come in late, you wouldn’t be busy now,” the therapist says.  “I can go talk to the director--”

“Fine,” Alex huffs out.  “Ten minutes.”

“Full session.”

Alex glares at her, the therapist looking blandly down at her from her spot in the door until Alex sighs.  “Fine.  Full session.”

“Here?”

“Can I work while we talk?  One of the idiots from the FBI broke--”

“That’s fine.”  The therapist settles down into one of the chairs across Alex’s desk, wiggling into the leather comfortably.  “Tell me about Lucy.”

Alex stares at the dismantled transistor on her desk, twirling a screwdriver absently.  “She arrested me once,” she starts, quiet and focused on the transistor.  She pries a fried terminal loose and discards it.

“Why?”

“Because I lied,” Alex says with a shrug.  “Under oath.  Beat a lie detector, too, but she just-- knew.  That I was protecting J’onn.  She arrested both of us, her and Harper.”

“Clearly you’re not in prison.”

“No,” Alex says with another shrug.  “She broke us out, basically.  Broke rank, defied orders, worked with Supergirl to break us both out.  She saved us from Cadmus.”

“Do you blame her for arresting you?”

“I thought I did, for a little while.”  Alex taps the screwdriver against the desk methodically.  “But I didn’t, not really.  Still don’t.  She was following orders, orders that made sense from where she was coming from.  I would have done the same thing in her shoes.”

“So you’re not angry that she arrested you?”

“No.”  Alex trades the screwdriver for a pair of pliers, head bent over the transistor.  “We got along fine after that.  She ran the DEO while J’onn was gone, and she was good at it.  She stayed on after he came back, and headed up the old base while we moved to this one.  They were focused on the Cadmus project exclusively.  Once that was wrapped up, we consolidated and she moved back over here, with our team.”

“Combat command, right?”

“Yeah.”  Alex squints and wrinkles her nose and yanks, pulling an ornery wire loose.  She huffs and spins around on her chair, facing the therapist briefly before focusing on digging through one of the toolboxes for a new wire.  “She went out into the field with us sometimes, depending on the mission, but mostly she ran things from here.  She had a better eye for it than anyone else in the DEO.”

Alex pauses, glancing over at the therapist, who watches calmly from her seat.

“How was your relationship with her?”

The new wire and the screwdriver fall from Alex’s hands, clattering down on the tabletop, and she grips at the edges of the table.  Indents bend into the metal under her right hand.  

“We were friends,” she says slowly.  

“Friends,” the therapist echoes, one eyebrow pushing up.

“And we went on a few dates,” Alex says, taking her glasses off and slumping down over the table and resting her forehead in her hands.  “Before-- before everything went to shit, we were--something.”

“Something?”

“Something,” Alex says with a tired shrug.  “We went out a few times.  Were going to go out again.  Something good.”

“So you didn’t just lose a friend, but a potential romantic partner?”

“It sounds weird when you put it that way,” Alex mumbles.  “But yeah.  I guess so.”

“What drew you to her in the first place?”

“What the hell does that matter?”

The therapist shrugs and inspects her fingernails.  “Well, it matters if you feel like you lost out on someone you were only sexually interested in versus if you were emotionally invested in--”

“Oh, Jesus,” Alex mutters.  “Seriously?”

The therapist meets her glare and waits, as she always does, while Alex huffs out an angry breath and turns back to focus on the transistor she’s working on, until she finally speaks.

“Lucy is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met,” Alex says to the transistor in front of her.  “And I know a lot of smart people.”

“There are a lot of them here,” the therapist comments.  “What made her different from all of them?”

“She cares,” Alex says with a shrug.  “For everyone.  Not that we don’t all care, because that’s-- but Lucy could be anywhere, doing anything, and she chose to go into the military.  She chose to work in an underground cave base for years, hidden from the public, against her father’s wishes and orders, because taking down Cadmus, protecting people, protecting aliens-- it was the right thing to do.

“The first time we hung out,” Alex says after a pause.  “We went out for drinks, because we’d been here stupid late, working on a bunch of paperwork.  Everyone else had gone home, and we went out to get a drink, and we just talked.  For a long time.”

“What about?”

“Being only human,” Alex says softly.  “Kara is Kryptonian, J’onn is Martian, Mon-El… even James had a suit that gave him major capabilities in the field, and we were just-- us.  Human.  Weak.”

“Being human doesn’t mean you’re weak.”

“It does when it comes to facing down most superpowered aliens.”  Alex shrugs.  “She and I both are combat experts, but that wouldn’t ever save us in the field if someone with Kara or J’onn’s capabilities wanted us dead.”

“So you bonded over a perceived shared weakness?”

“Something like that,” Alex says with half of a smile.  “Traded grad school stories.  Talked about being the overshadowed sister.  About how my sister had started dating her ex.  All sorts of nonsense.”

“And then what?”

“And then.”  Alex takes a deep breath.  “Then I asked her on a date.  And she said yes.”

“How did the date go?”

“Good,” Alex says, halfway to a smile.  “Great, really.  We went out again the next week, had another one lined up.  Then-- then we went out in the field, and we lost and--”

“And now she’s gone,” the therapist says quietly.  “She left you.”

“She left all of us.”  Alex slumps back in her chair, glasses dangling from one hand and eyes cast up towards the ceiling.

“But especially you?”

“Yes-- no,” Alex redirects.  “I mean, yes, she left me especially in the sense that we were maybe dating, but she also-- she and Kara were so close, she was as much Kara’s best friend as Winn was.  She and J’onn worked together constantly, she was his go-to for combat and tactical decisions, they got along great.  She was our friend.”

“And now she’s gone,” the therapist says again.  “How do you feel about that?”

Alex shrugs, a loud exhale puffing out.  “I don’t know.  I miss her.”

“You miss her as what?  Your friend, your sister’s best friend, your colleague, teammate, girlfriend?”

Alex puts her glasses back on and stares down at her right hand, flexing and releasing her fingers slowly, over and over again.  Her stomach knots around itself sometimes, still, at the way light reflects off of the dull sheen of the black covering that makes up the hand, the way it melds into a port at the end of what’s left of her forearm.  

“Yes,” she says after a long moment.  “All of that.”

 

* * *

By the time she’s been out of the hospital for three months, Alex has learned to put her contacts in one-handed, how to more or less write-- in oversized, blocky, childlike letters-- with her left hand, and how to pick up a bottle of water with her right without crushing it.  Kara has started to smile again, as Kara and not just as Supergirl, honest and genuine.  

Four months, and Alex goes back to the gun range for the first time and tries shooting left handed.  It goes terribly and Kara, being Kara, laughs at her going from a 100% to a 10% accuracy rate and then hugs her.  Alex blocks off the range for herself every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after her therapy appointments.

Five months, and Alex finally convinces J’onn to let her back into combat training.  Kara uses her slightly terrifying sway over billionaire women to convince Cat Grant to start a journalism and photography non-profit for underprivileged youth in National City and Metropolis, and Lena helps fund it.  Alex is up to 86% accuracy with her left hand, can type with both, and spends her weekends helping Kara with the administrative burden at the non-profit while steadfastly avoiding the children it helps.

Eight months, and Winn’s birthday comes along.  It’s a Saturday and it becomes the first Saturday Alex has spent without Kara, giving up on Kara letting her into the apartment and eventually sequestering herself off in her lab for the rest of the day until Kara appears, eyes red and sweats rumpled, at the DEO with takeout and ice cream.  It takes them two hours to figure out how to get the monitors in command to run Netflix-- it had only ever taken Winn about three minutes-- but Kara reheats the Chinese food and they settle in under a mound of blankets from the medical wing to watch  _ Star Wars _ .

The holidays come next, Thanksgiving subdued at Kara’s apartment and Christmas in Midvale.  It’s a quiet affair, coffee and presents in the living room on Christmas morning, just the three of them, the way it had been for over a decade until Supergirl and Winn and James and their whole family came together in National City.

On the first anniversary of the day they all died, Alex goes to Kara’s apartment to find it empty.  It takes her three hours to find her sister, finally locating her sitting under a tree in the grass near the memorial, knees pulled up to her chest and glasses propped on top of her head.

Alex settles down next to her and drops her head onto Kara’s shoulder.  Kara curls towards her and they stay there, all afternoon, until the sun starts to set and the shadows stretch out over the headstones, obscuring names and words and dates in the dark.

 

* * *

“The General is not available--”

“Tell him it’s Agent Danvers, from the DEO,” Alex says sharply, pacing up and down her lab.  “Calling in regards to his daughter.”

“Hold please.”

Nearly five minutes stretch past, filled with numbing hold music, because apparently even the Army uses terrible elevator music to fill stonewalling silences.

“Ma’am?”

“I’m still here,” Alex says with a sigh.

“General Lane asks that you please direct any inquiries regarding the personnel or activities of the US Army through official channels and that I inform you that this office will no longer be accepting direct communications from the DEO or any associates, save for issues surrounding national security.”

“Yeah, well, fuck him too,” Alex mutters, hanging up and hurling the phone onto her desk chair.  It bounces and clatters to the floor, cracking the screen.

“I’m going to start putting a limit on the number of new phones you get a month,” J’onn says from the doorway.  He drops a stack of folders onto her desk.  “Vasquez’s mission reports.  I need you to review them.”

“Yeah, sure,” Alex says, rubbing at her eyes.  

“Who pissed you off?”

“General Lane can kiss--”

“Why the hell are you calling him?”

Alex flops down into her chair, retrieving her phone and inspecting the crack on the screen.  “Trying to track down Lucy.  She transferred to a classified post two months after she got to DC and no one will tell me anything, even if I have the clearance.”

“Lucy made her choice,” J’onn says after a long moment.  “Everyone grieves differently and--”

“I need to talk to her, J’onn,” Alex says softly.  “I never got to-- she was barely talking to anyone after, and then she disappeared, and I just-- really need to see her.”

He sighs, one shoulder propped against the doorway.  “Did you try Lois?”

“Kara’s working on it,” Alex says, huffing out a sigh of her own.  “When she does--”

“Take a week,” J’onn says with a wave.  “But then you come back and you focus on work.  No chasing after someone who doesn’t want to be chased.”

“Deal,” Alex says, already texting Kara.  J'onn rolls his eyes and rests a hand on her shoulder for a moment before leaving her to chase after threads of Lucy Lane.


	3. Chapter 3

 

DC is sweltering.  The dry heat blasting from the airplane engines and the tarmac up into the jet bridge is one thing, but the first step Alex takes out of Dulles is into a sticky wall of heat and humidity that draws a grimace out of her and has her yanking her blazer off.

She glances down at her right hand for a moment.  This is the first time she’s been in real humidity, and so far it’s passed all the waterproof testing, but humidity is fickle and obnoxious.  She flexes her hand and curls it into a fist and resolves to call Lena about it when she gets to the hotel.  

There’s a car waiting for her, one of the dozens of effectively identical black sedans waiting to whisk people away.  Her driver looks to be barely out of college, his babyface wide and excited as he hurries to take her bag and settle it in the trunk.  His eyes do a quick double take at the glove on her right hand, like most people, but he recovers smoothly and opens the car door for her with a flourish.

She texts Kara from the car to let her know she arrived.  

_ You sure you don’t want me to fly out there?  I can be there in like ten minutes _

_ It’s okay _ , Alex texts back.   _ I’ll let you know once I talk to her _

She checks into her hotel and responds to the slew of emails she’d received while on the plane before calling her driver back.  He chatters the whole drive, Alex humming noncommittally to his questions from the backseat.  Her knee bounces, rapid and nonstop, as they make their way towards the office Lucy is working in now.  

“Pull over here,” she says suddenly, gesturing to a street corner.  They’re still a block away from the address Alex has saved in her phone but there, walking down the sidewalk in uniform with careful posture and tired steps, is Lucy.

Alex stares out the tinted window as Lucy walks right by her car.  Her cheekbones are sharper, her eyes deeper set.  The street lights glint off of her hair, not because of the dark glossy sheen it had always had, but because lines of silver slide through it.  She looks old, and tired, and Alex pushes a hand over her mouth because for all of the things she had imagined leading up to this, a beaten down Lucy Lane starting to go grey at thirty was hardly one of them.

“I’ll call a cab later,” Alex says distractedly, ignoring the driver and slipping out of the car.  She shuts the door softly and casts a glance down the sidewalk.  Lucy continues on, and Alex strides after her, hanging half a block back and following her into a bar.  

It’s dim and loud inside, half bar and half dance floor.   Alex slides along the crowd inside, eyes finding the back of Lucy’s uniform, settled on a stool at the bar and nursing a drink.  Uncertainty weights Alex’s feet to the floor, and she loses her nerve, shuffling back to an empty table with a view of the bar and settling into the booth.

Lucy finishes her drink as Alex orders one for herself.  Another appears in front of Lucy-- scotch neat, as always, the same drink she’d had on their second date-- and Alex ignores her own beer, staring unabashedly at Lucy.  

Five minutes in, Lucy sits up straighter, glancing over her shoulder.  She turns on the barstool slowly, squinting into the crowd of bodies that’s filling up the bar, scanning the whole room.  Alex pulls back further into the booth, clamping her hand down on her leg to stop herself from standing and walking over to Lucy, from speaking to her and holding her and taking her  _ home _ .  Cybernetic fingers dig into her thigh, hard enough to bruise and hard enough to ground her, and she waits until Lucy gives up on whatever had caught her attention and turns back to the bar.

Alex’s beer has gone lukewarm in her hand and she’s glared away at least three people trying to hit on her, redirecting away from her table as soon as she locked eyes on them and clenched her jaw and stared them down.  Lucy is on her third scotch.  A woman sits down next to her, leaning towards her with flirty hands and bedroom eyes, and Alex grips her bottle so hard it nearly skids out of her hand, condensation on the glass negating her grip.

Less than two minutes pass, the woman leaning towards Lucy with a hand on her wrist and chin propped in her other hand, and Lucy barely moving.  She leans even closer and kisses Lucy, obviously heated and filthy even from the other side of the room where Alex sits.  Lucy stands abruptly, hand curling around the woman’s as she’s lead away.  Alex stares after them as they head to the hallway towards the bathroom.

They pass under the neon lights at the threshold of the hallway, pink lights illuminating the both of them for a brief moment, and Alex’s stomach folds in on itself because Lucy’s fingers are tangled lazily with another woman’s, because once she had held Lucy’s hand like that, because it’s been a year and a half and she’s lost three brothers and a hand and her whole life has been upended but she swears she can still taste the coffee on Lucy’s tongue from the one time they kissed.   

 

* * *

 

 

Alex leaves the bar and calls a cab back to her hotel.  Her clothes smell like smoke and stale tequila, and she strips them off and kicks them into a corner before climbing into the shower.  She stays under the water until the smell of the bar has dissipated into the steam that fills the bathroom and her skin is red from the heat.

She calls Kara after her shower.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” she says instead of a hello.

“What?”

“I saw her,” Alex says quietly, curling into the armchair in her room.  “She-- she looks a mess, Kara.”

There’s silence on the other end of the phone, broken only by a brief shuffling and then the quiet  _ snick _ of a door shutting.  

“Where are you?” Alex picks at the hem of her sweatpants.  

“I’m--home,” Kara says.  Her voice is tight and strained, and Alex rolls her eyes.

“You know you can’t lie to me.”

Silence stretches out for another set of seconds before Kara speaks.  “I’m at Lena’s.”

“Luthor?”

“What, do we know another Lena?”

“You’re not funny,” Alex says, wrinkling her nose even though Kara can’t see her.  “Why are you at Lena’s at 8:30 on a Thursday night?”

More silence.  Alex counts to ten before taking a deep breath.  

“You know how she feels about you, right?” Alex says softly.  

“Wait, how do you know about that?” Kara says.

Alex barks out a short laugh.  “My job is literally to watch everyone who comes near you, Kara, of course I knew.  She looks at you the way you look at ice cream when you’ve had a shitty day.”  She smiles a little, the first one all day, because for a moment it feels like they’re just  _ normal _ , two sisters talking about their love lives, without battle scars and superhuman responsibilities weighing them down.  “Do you like her?”

“Yeah,” Kara mumbles.  She takes a deep breath.  “So what’s going on with Lucy?  What’d she say?”

“I haven’t talked to her yet,” Alex says carefully.  “I saw her and--”

“What, you stalked her?”  Kara says.  “Alex!”

“I was going to talk to her!” Alex says.  “I just-- I saw her going by and I went to catch up with her but she went into a bar and she just-- God, Kara, she looks like she hasn’t slept in forever.”  She pauses, rubbing at her eyes.  “She just went in and was drinking alone and then some stranger came up to her and then they left together.”

“Oh,” Kara says faintly.  “Alex, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Alex mutters, lying as effectively as Kara always has.  “I didn’t come here for some-- some romantic reunion bullshit.  We all just want her to come home.  That’s what matters.”

“Alex,” Kara says again.  “You get to be upset.”

Alex stares down at the cybernetic fingers, running her hand along the her leg.  “I know,” she says after a long moment.  “And I am.  But it’s not why I’m here, and I know that, and I don’t want to-- to talk to her angry about  _ that _ , because it’s not like she owes me anything.”

“Okay,” Kara murmurs.  “So what’s your game plan?”

Alex huffs out a sigh.  “I’ll try tomorrow.  At work, I guess.  Unless she’s also banging her secretary or something.”

Kara laughs and claps a hand over her mouth, the sound snapping through the phone, and Alex smiles and settles more comfortably down into the chair.

“So,” she says.  “Tell me about Lena.”

Kara groans and Alex smiles wider into her empty hotel room.

 

* * *

Alex wakes up before sunrise, paperwork scattered around her on the hotel bed.  She’s jittery and wide awake, too awake, and she lays around for fifteen minutes before grumbling out a curse and getting out of bed to go for a run.

It’s hot and sticky even before the sun’s come up, and she’s worked up a sweat in the first half mile.  She doesn’t know enough about DC geography to know where to run, so she circles the same six blocks ten times as the city starts to wake up around her.

She takes a 45 minute shower afterwards and then spends two hours answering emails, clearing out her inbox, and organizing all of the files on her laptop.  She has a meeting at 11:00 and had told Kara she was going to go find Lucy before then, but 10:30 rolls around and she’s still in her hotel room, grumbling at inconsistent naming conventions in the DEO files and definitely not thinking about Lucy Lane’s tired eyes and Lucy Lane’s measured steps and Lucy Lane fucking a stranger in a bar bathroom.

There’s a voicemail on her phone when she finishes her meeting.  It’s from Kara, of course, bubbly and excited and babbling about staying the night with Lena and how she’s starting to feel happy again.  Alex smiles down at her shoes as she listens.

“...and I just wanted to say, really, why I called-- good luck today, and give Lucy a hug for me, and come home soon.  Both of you.  I love you.”

Alex takes a slow breath as the message ends.  People bustle around her on the sidewalk, hurried and harried in expensive suits, and Alex takes another deep breath before calling a cab.

Lucy has a secretary, a slight man with glasses and a soft voice, too soft for the uniform he’s wearing.  He protests, but Alex flashes her badge at him-- DHS, this time around, because General Lane can fuck right off-- and swerves past his desk, right hand on his shoulder gripping with preternatural strength and stunning him straight into silence.  There’s a door behind him with  _ Lieutenant Colonel Lane _ on the nameplate and Alex pauses and breathes and reaches for the doorknob.


End file.
